


The Benefits of Communication

by Portia77



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AND THEN HAPPY, And then exasperated, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky is not the Winter Soldier, Bucky went into the ice with Steve, Established Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Getting Together, M/M, Misunderstandings, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, Polyamory Negotiations, Steve and Bucky want to be in a poly relationship but they don't know how to go about it, Toni is angry, Toni tells them off for not communicating, that's it that's the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:06:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26129998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Portia77/pseuds/Portia77
Summary: Steve cottoned on to her anger first, his pleased smile melting rapidly to concern. “Toni,” he said with a frown. “What’s wrong?”“What’s wrong?” she asked thinly. “What’s wrong? This,” she waved the note about furiously. “This! I can’t fucking deal with this anymore! I tried to be a good sport about it, but honestly, this is starting to piss me off.”
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 7
Kudos: 213





	The Benefits of Communication

**Author's Note:**

> I will be completely honest with you: I really hate the fics where Steve/Bucky flirt aggressively with Tony when it’s clear he doesn’t understand that they’re interested in a poly relationship. To be clear, I hate any poly fic that uses that premise since it’s such poor communication skills, but I feel it happens the most in Stuckony fics to Tony. It always, always, always just feels like Stucky are playing mind games with him. And if there’s one thing I hate in a relationship, it’s mind games, so… 
> 
> tl;dr the motivation for this fic was spite #sorrynotsorry
> 
> PS -- In case it isn't clear in the story, Bucky never became the Winter Soldier. He crashed with Steve in the plane, but that's details, darling. Details.

Toni Stark was not a pushover, but most of her friends knew it took a great deal to rile her up. Insults and vulgarities could slide right off her skin like water on oil. In fact, next to Bruce, whose relaxed attitude was more of a necessity than a genuine personality trait, she was possibly the most mellow of the Avengers. Natasha had a lethal temper, Clint went off like a short fuse, and Thor was quick to anger but also quick to forgive. Steve and Bucky, the frozen fossils who had been dug up from the ocean, were both known for getting heated a time or two or ten.

Pepper had once called Toni Stark’s anger a bottle. It fills and fills over time, and you can’t tell Toni’s going to lose it until the bottle’s overflowing and it all comes out at once. 

_That_ was how Toni worked.

It wasn’t healthy, and it wasn’t a choice she made really, but Toni knew deep down that she stored away old hurts until there was just one too many. When she exploded, it meant she was upset about a hundred different things instead of just the one, which often made it very difficult for the recipient to understand what the fuck was wrong with her. 

She planned on making herself _very_ clear today. 

“JAR, are the fossils upstairs?” she snapped, already storming out of her lab. 

_“Yes, ma’am. Shall I tell them you’re on your way?”_

“No,” she said, slamming the door to her lab shut behind her and boarding the elevator. “Let’s give them a surprise.” It was only fair, considering the way they’d made her feel for the past two months.

The doors opened on the Avenger’s personal floor, where everyone had their own room. “Hey Stark,” Clint called out from where he was draped on the couches next to Natasha. “Well, aren’t you looking chipper today?” 

_“Shut up,”_ she bit out, marching past the communal living space and making a beeline for the hall. 

“Uh, woke up on the wrong side of the bed, much?” Clint called as she left. She knew she was being unfair to her teammate, but she’d apologize to Barton later. Right now, she had bigger fish to fry. 

Without knocking, she burst into Steve’s room, the one he shared with Bucky, and swung the door shut behind her so the rest of the team couldn’t eavesdrop. 

Steve’s bedroom was as clean and tidy as ever, bed made, clothes put away. The man in question was lounging in a chair by the window, sketching something he saw outside as Bucky cleaned his favourite gun in the opposite corner. 

_“You,”_ she snarled at them. They had jumped in surprise at the sound of her crashing through the door, but their reactions to see her were those of delight. 

“Hiya doll,” Bucky winked at her. “You got the note, I see.” 

The piece of post-it paper was crumpled in her fist. She’d snatched it up in a blind rage as she left her lab, too incised to be gentle with it. 

Steve cottoned on to her anger first, his pleased smile melting rapidly to concern. “Toni,” he said with a frown. “What’s wrong?” 

“What’s wrong?” she asked thinly. “What’s _wrong?_ This,” she waved the note about furiously. “This! I can’t fucking deal with this anymore! I tried to be a good sport about it, but honestly, this is starting to piss me off.”

Both Bucky and Steve were on their feet now, striding over to her with identical looks of disappointment and worry. “What…” Bucky glanced at her clenched fist and his face fell some. “What do you mean? No one’s trying to make you mad, doll.” 

“Don’t,” she warned. “Don’t call me that. That’s not fair, okay? I’m sick of this.” She unfolded the note in her hands, reading off it theatrically. _“‘Tone, that dress you wore last night was gorgeous. It would’ve looked even better on the floor in our bedroom.’_ I’m assuming _one_ of you wrote this.” 

Steve looked at his boyfriend with naked horror on his face. _“Bucky!”_

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “You didn’t know about this?” 

“No,” Steve said shortly. He glared at his best friend. “That’s not a nice thing to say to a lady.”

“Ah ha! See?” She pointed at the blond triumphantly. “Even your boyfriend agrees that was too far!” 

Bucky, who had gone pale at Toni’s obviously displeased reaction to his note, winced. “Toni, I can explain. Steve’s right, it was just me. I took it too far, I’m real sorry.” He rubbed the back of his neck guiltily. 

“It’s not just the note.” 

They both looked increasingly confused and more than a little put out. “I thought you were okay with the flirting,” Bucky mumbled. 

“Well, I’m _not,”_ she said hotly. She hadn’t been brought to tears of rage in years and years, but her eyes stung as she yelled them into submission. “I’m not okay with the little love notes left in my lab, or the winking at me when you go to bed together, or joking about me sitting in your lap during team movie nights.”

“I’m sorry!” Bucky spoke quickly, Steve nodding rapidly beside him in agreement. “We’re sorry. We thought… I mean, flirting today is so _forward_ and blunt. I thought you wouldn’t mind flirting that way.” 

“Loads of people flirt with me, Barnes,” she began lowly. “Strangers. Enemies. That’s harmless. But this,” she shook the note furiously, “This is too far. I thought we were friends.” 

“We are,” Bucky said, hurt in his face. 

Steve stepped forward. “Toni, we’ll… We’ll back off. I’m so sorry. We really thought this was...how things are done.” 

The captain of the Avengers looked unusually distressed and dishevelled, and the sight of it poked a hole in the balloon of hot air she was carrying. She deflated little by little, until the anger she’d been boiling in came down to a simmer, and only her hurt remained. 

“A little bit of flirting between friends is fine, I guess,” she said slowly. “But… But you know how I feel about you. I mean, I’ve tried to keep it under wraps, but you _must_ know by now. Not even Cap here is that blind.” She frowned at her feet, unable to look them in the eye. “Flirting with someone who has feelings for you when you don’t feel the same way is... _really_ mean, you guys. I don’t know what makes you think it’s different now in the 21st century, but I assure you, that’s still true.” 

She laid the note carefully on the dresser beside her. “So just… Please stop. It’s not fair. It’s not fun for me, okay?”

No one said anything for ages. Toni was too caught up in the sensation of her heart racing, a lingering effect from the shouting she’d just done, and the soldiers seemed to be diligently processing all she'd said.

“Toni,” Steve took one cautious step forward. “Toni, honey, I’m… I am _so_ sorry. We went about this all wrong, but I swear it isn’t what you think.” 

She sighed heavily, body angled away from them. She felt _vulnerable_ in front of them, so much so that she folded her arms across her chest defensively, grimacing. 

“How so?” she mumbled glumly, staring at the wall. Of all the times not to have her shades….

A warm hand gently brushed against her shoulder, a coaxing touch that was silently asking her to look up at them. Painfully, like staring into the sun, she turned her gaze into the bright blue eyes of Steve Rogers. 

“I would _never_ do that to you,” he said, soft and fierce in one breath. “We would never, _ever_ use you like that. I’d kill anyone who tried.”

Toni made a face. “You’re not a killer.” 

“He’s not,” Bucky agreed. “But _I_ am. And I’d sure as hell kill anyone who tried to hurt you that way.”

“None of this explains your behaviour for the past two months,” she pointed out. 

“We like you,” Steve said quickly, like he wanted to leap at anything that might make her happy. “We both like you a lot."

“A _lot,”_ Bucky echoed emphatically.

"We have for a long, long while, but we didn’t know if you’d be open to something with the three of us. So we started, y’know…”

“Making assholes out of ourselves, clearly,” Bucky finished tightly, a pinched quality to his expression. 

“Flirting,” Steve corrected. “Trying to see if you might like us back. And you did seem to flirt back so… So we thought…”

Of course she’d flirted back with them. In the beginning, she’d been so greedy for their combined attention, she would devour any piece of them she could have. It was all harmless to start. _You look beautiful,_ and _I can’t believe you know how to do all this,_ and _You make us feel so comfortable here._ But then the flirting got progressively lewd and bold. It even started raising the collective eyebrows of the rest of the team. 

Of all the possible explanations she could’ve envisioned, this was by far the least expected. “The three of us?” Toni coughed out in surprise. “Are you talking about _polyamory?”_

Bucky shrugged. “Yeah, of course.”

“Why,” she began through gritted teeth. _“Why_ would I assume you wanted a polyamorous relationship with me? You never even _told_ me.” 

“Well…. You’re so _modern_ and…” Steve turned to Bucky for support. 

Toni felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. “And slutty?” she asked sharply. “Is that it? You thought since I fuck any gender--”

“No!” Bucky said loudly. It was the first he’d raised his voice at her. “No, Jesus, Toni. You… You’ve been our primary source of education in gender and sexuality since we came out of the plane, you know that? You taught us about bisexuality and pansexuality and transgendered and gender queer.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess we thought, you know, you’re like the expert. We didn’t know we’d need to tell you…”

“Poly relationships aren’t exactly mainstream. It's cool, but it's just not the solution most people jump to.” Toni leaned against the dressed, unimpressed. “If this was something you’re interested in, you should’ve said so. _Directly_. You know, talking, communicating. Asking me on a date.”

Steve jumped at the last part of her list. “We were gonna ask you out properly after the product launch! I know you’ve been flying around the world dealing with Stark investors. You just seemed way too busy to even _consider_ a date with one person, let alone two.”

He wasn’t wrong, but… "I thought you were playing with me or something. Like this was all fun and games to you.” Her confession felt stupid and childish, but she knew in her heart it needed to be said.

“We're sorry,” they said in unison, looking so pitiful and shamefaced that it damn near broke her heart. 

Toni clapped her hands over her face and exhaled shrilly into them. “Oh my _god_ , you two,” she said with a huff. “What the hell am I gonna do with you?” 

“Love us?” Bucky suggested hopefully. She peered at him between her fingers, scowling.

“Obviously I do,” she muttered into her palms. Normal people might not have heard it, but super soldiers definitely would and _did_ from the way both of them perked up. Bless their hearts, neither man called her on her accidental confession. She wasn’t sure what she’d have said if they had.

She let her hands fall to her sides again.

“We did this wrong,” Steve said. “We get that now. We know better, and we _really_ want to treat you right. Is that… Is that something you might be interested in?”

“If you actually commit to _talking_ to me?” Toni propped her hands on her hips. “And being open with what you want? And how you want it?” 

Both men nodded so fast, they could’ve been bobbleheads. 

Toni clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. It was a struggle and a half not leaping at the offer. “I’d certainly consider it,” she said evenly, sweeping her eyes up and down over both men’s bodies. Hot damn, they were better than anything her imagination could come up with. And her imagination was _exceptional._

“So,” Steve exchanged a hopeful look with Bucky. “Can we ask you out? For a _date._ With the two of us, for more than sex or...short-term amusement.” 

"For something real and permanent and good," Bucky added.

The words nearly knocked the air from her lungs. Toni pursed her lips. “Tomorrow’s a new day. Fresh start, yada yada yada. You can… You can ask me _then_ , if you want.” 

Steve smiled softly, and Bucky beamed. It was the youngest she’d ever seen them look. “Then be ready to see us first thing tomorrow,” the brunette teased with some hesitation. “Bright and early.” 

Toni nodded shyly. “Okay…” She looked about the room, eyes roving wildly until they settled on the couch and TV set up near the door. An idea sparked in her mind. “Y’know, I wouldn’t say no to watching a movie now.” She shrugged defensively. “If you wanted.” 

“If we wanted,” Steve echoed in amusement. “Well, _I_ want to. Bucky?” 

“Oh, I want to.” He clapped his hands together. “I’ll get the popcorn.” 

“I’ll get drinks.” Steve smiled tenderly at Toni. “Wanna pick out a movie for us? Something lighthearted, maybe?” 

Just like that, the tight coil of anger and hurt released, and her heart fluttered hopefully at the thought of being sandwiched between the pair of them. 

“I’d be delighted.”


End file.
